Author of "Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat," on the science of taste, culinary history, and the future of food. My work has appeared in Smithsonian magazine, Wired, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, the Guardian and the Huffington Post. In a previous life I was a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, where I contributed to several Pulitzer Prize-winning efforts. I am the co-author of "Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms."

There are certain moments in politics when, suddenly, everything shifts. Maybe it all moves only just a couple minutes clockwise. But when you look back, months, years, or decades later, it seems obvious that a ratchet was turning, opening larger and larger cracks in the status quo. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre’s Friday press conference looks like one of these moments.

LaPierre said little he hasn’t been saying for years; he was using a playbook written sometime in the mid-1990s, it seems, complete with references to videogames of that era. But circumstances have changed, if only temporarily, in the wake of the Newtown killings, and LaPierre’s defensive, breast-beating, blame-everybody-else stock rhetoric was the last thing people needed to hear from the NRA. The proposal to deploy what amounts to an armed paramilitary force in schools across America will enrich a lot of lobbyists, but is an obvious non-starter.

This might be explained as routine tone-deafness. But the NRA has a powerful claim on mainstream American politics and culture. Politicians of all stripes are proud to cite their membership. And in this critical moment, the NRA chose to disengage itself from the political dialogue. LaPierre sits outside it, above it, off to one side, and puts his finger in the eye of those who choose to participate and have an interest in action. This includes not just President Obama and some liberal Democrats, but a much broader swath of the political spectrum, and anxious parents across the country.

A functioning political system depends on small gestures. For one, if you want a seat at the table, you have to pretend to want to be at the table. That means making gestures of conciliation, a “here’s what we can agree on” proviso, even if your aim is to thwart any agreement. This is the stock-in-trade of lobbying, and it’s useful because it sometimes allows actual agreements to be reached. But the NRA (and, as it happens, the House Republican caucus) have simply abandoned any pretense of wanting to sit at the table. They believe their rump movements are 100% correct, and that they can always get 100% of what they want. There is no need to even engage the other side, or even acknowledge its legitimacy. As Alec MacGillis writes:

Above all, of course, there was the utter absence of any gesture toward the sort of new regulation that could mitigate if not prevent future Newtowns, and that many, many gun owners would be glad to support, whether it’s limits on military-style rifles, expanded magazine clips, or closing of the gunshow loophole and other blatant gaps in existing requirements for background checks to make sure guns don’t end up in the wrong hands. This was profoundly startling to those of us who have become used to lobbies and special interests adept at playing the game of public relations and tactical compromise—heck, even Wall Street was willing to accept some new restraints on its behavior post–financial crash.

But the gun lobby has carried on unchallenged for so long now that such instincts must seem completely foreign and unnecessary to it, leaving it looking hopelessly clueless and callous when the moment screams out for such gestures. This is, in part, a product of the bubble mindset that takes hold anytime a subculture drifts from the mainstream, as is so plainly happening with gun enthusiasts in this country.

The NRA is writing checks its lingering institutional credibility can no longer cash.

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